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Delhi police insist they killed a militant

Deputy commissioner of police (special branch) Ashok Chand, investigating the Red Fort shootout, defended the killing of alleged militant Abu Shamal in an encounter, at Batla House in Jamia Nagar, south Delhi on December 26.

"We verified his credentials and are sure that he was a militant," Chand told rediff.com. He regretted the fact that even though the police had done a good job, the media questioned them.

"How can we send a team to Srinagar when we have been forced to defend our action in the media?" he lamented.

According to the confessional statement of arrested militant Ashfaq Ahmed, made available to rediff.com, six militants in groups of two entered the light and sound show at Red Fort on December 22.

"We went in two three-wheelers and reached early. We bought tickets and managed to smuggle in arms under our jackets. Later, four left the place, while two executed the shootout," Ashfaq said.

"We are investigating the case. On the basis of information provided to us by the arrested militant, the Jammu and Kashmir police gunned down another militant of the Laskhar-e-Tayiba, Abu Sufiyan. He did not participate in the Red Fort shootout, but was a conduit for those who executed the attack and their bosses across Muzzaffarbad," said Chand.

Ashfaq Ahmed, a resident of Pakistan, is a graduate who had undergone intensive training at Muzzaffarbad, before he entered India in May 1999 through the Kupwara border.

"He had a regular supply of money. At a given time, he would get Rs 1 million. He set up a computer centre at Gafoor Market. He told interrogators that he came to Delhi in August and lived at Gazipur. During his stay in Delhi, he got a ration card by posing as a resident from Jammu who lost his mother and father. He even got a driver's licence,'' Chand said.

''In October, he was told to carry out subversive activities and was told to look for a safe house. With the help of Rashid Khan, an earlier tenant, he got a flat at Batla House and shifted in the first week of December. Soon, Bilal and Haider, also militants, joined him. Abu Shamal, Abu Shakar and Abu Sadd followed the next week. In between, he answered a matrimonial advertisement and married Rehmana. It is very strange that the marriage took place even though nobody knew about the boy's past," Chand added.

Accoring to police officials, the militants left the capital in groups of two each on two consecutive days. "They are now in the Valley. We are now looking for Rahid Khan, who arranged for their accommodation," he explained.

He disputed claims of residents that the man shot dead was a resident of Amroha in Uttar Pradesh and not a Kashmiri militant. "I have heard that the parents of the boy killed are in town. I would like to meet them," he said.

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